BENGALURU: Armed with names of shortlisted candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, members of Karnataka BJP’s core committee arrived in New Delhi on Sunday evening. Earlier in the day, a meeting led by state unit president B S Yeddyurappa was held in Bengaluru to finalise candidates in all 28 constituencies.
Leaders of the BJP said that at least the first list of candidates for 22 out of 28 seats could be announced on Monday -- the day Congress president Rahul Gandhi will be in Karnataka to address an election rally in Kalaburagi and later meet with entrepreneurs in Bengaluru.
Sources from the BJP said that the core committee has recommended only one candidate in 15 constituencies where the party has sitting MPs while more than one name has been shortlisted for contentious seats. “There is contention for seats of Chitradurga and Kolar and they haven’t been finalised. Caste combinations have been taken into consideration to shortlist names of candidates who are winnable. The final call on the ticket, at least for these seats, will be taken only by the central leadership. Otherwise, names suggested by the State core committee are pretty much final,” said a BJP MP. The core committee members are scheduled to meet party national president Amit Shah on Sunday evening or Monday morning for approval of the list.
“We have shortlisted candidates for all 28 seats. The list will be discussed with the central leadership after which candidates will be announced. We have also discussed fielding a candidate in Mandya. Depending on Sumalatha’s move, the central election committee will take a call,” said Arvind Limbavali, General Secretary, BJP and MLA. Sources in the party said that single candidates have been recommended in three more constituencies -- Srinivas Prasad for Chamarajanagar, A Manju for Hassan and Umesh Jadhav for Kalburgi. Tejaswini Ananthkumar for Bengaluru South faced some opposition but her name has been shortlisted, according to sources.